landbridge

A connection between large landmasses or continents that is exposed during lowered sea levels usually due to glaciation.

During the last glacial maximum, which was about 12,000 years ago, a landbridge linked Siberia in Asia to Alaska in North America. It is theorized that humans and large mammals such as the mastadon and the mammoth migrated into North America across this landbridge and other animals, such as the horse and camel, migrated from North America into Asia.